


a garden of poetry and prayer

by sweetdreamsaremadeoffish



Series: uncharted [1]
Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: ??? - Freeform, F/F, Fluff and Smut, Mostly Smut Right Now, Sorry?, That Fluff Bit, and soft Sara Bareilles, and you’re welcome?, but it turned into smut, fueled by an anxiety attack, have a pathetic excuse for an update, here, so like, that'll be fun, this was meant to be comforting fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-29 11:53:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19019395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetdreamsaremadeoffish/pseuds/sweetdreamsaremadeoffish
Summary: muscle melts to musicyou modulate the keywriting whispered anthemsinside every piece of me





	1. hymns scrawled beneath

**Author's Note:**

> The explanation for this is in the tags. I don’t know guys, I’m working on the Ambrose/Prudence work for “in the days that follow”, and I missed Madam Spellman.  
> So now we’re here.

It’s borne of boredom.

Lilith itches under skin too thin to house her newfound power. She’s underestimated the weight of sovereignty, thinking her long-awaited euphoria would dissolve any trouble with trivialities.

Much like Satan, she’s predisposed to violence. Her core roils, begging for sharp edges and screams, bloodlust threatening to consume her. Maybe if she digs far enough into her skin, she’ll find some buried piece of who she used to be, some an artefact of time before. A time when she was no devoted servant, obedient only to herself and the whims of the wind.

Mind racing, she has to escape. Just for a little while. Just to calm the tempestuous nature of her thoughts. They grow more dark and wild as she fights the urge to run, idling through pleasantries and politics to save face before demon aristocrats.

Delicate patience, another trait she shares with her former Lord. She can only hope this splitting, searing thing will subside soon, a passing effect of carrying the crown of Hell.

 _Finally_ , she has a moment’s respite from the crush of constant conversation and duty, and she dives into the shadows, seeking refuge in the place that has called out her name across the abyss since she descended into the Pit as its Queen.

 

 

Zelda runs her days into the ground and spends her nights in oceans of alcohol.

The house is full of recovering witches and warlocks who need all her strength, and as a result, she keeps none of her own. Caring for and watching over so many is more taxing than she cares to admit, and she envies Hilda, the natural-born nurturer, with her ever-present, effervescent grin and approachable demeanor. The coven reveres Zelda and accepts her self-proclaimed authority with ease, but it’s her sister who receives their love.

Embroiled in inappropriate jealousy and complex religious constructions, there’s very little time for sleep. Even less to address the horrid, grasping things that haunt her dreams. If she lets herself think too deeply for too long, she sinks and spins in the cement dancer’s shoes of the Caligari Spell and its memory. Ghostly nails like a demon’s claws rake her alabaster skin with recollections of their owner’s perversions. Blackwood chokes her every attempt at freedom, lingering in her head and shaking hands at the witching hour.

It grows no less vivid and vile as weeks upon weeks distance the Spellman clan from her husband’s barbaric flight.

Zelda rebuilds the church, the coven, and herself, all in stone. Each morning, she sculpts a fierce, untouchable leader from the coarse block of anguish that greets her from the mirror, crafting her suffering into a force of nature and raging through the woods when insomnia and more sinister creatures drive her from her bed.

She doesn’t expect a visit from the Queen of Hell.

 

 

She’s alone, as Hilda’s spending her nights in another bedroom, under another roof, these days. Brimstone scalds her adenoids, burning down her throat, and Lilith stands before her. Heralding hellfire glows down to embers, allowing the room to settle after her unannounced arrival. Zelda drips from under the covers and kneels.

“Dark Lady.” She’s hoarse with shock. “How may I serve you?”

Venturing a glance up at her Goddess, Zelda detects something amiss.

Lilith joins her on the floor, knee to unholy, glamored knee. Then her worshipped head is in Zelda’s lap, umber tresses spilling across her thighs. Lilith wants to ask for a thousand beautiful things to soothe her burning lungs and sizzling skull, but eventually a single thought comes to her. A trilled invocation; one of the first and one of Zelda’s tenderest. It had been a sweet crooned musing from a midnight’s steaming bath, nothing more.

“Will you sing to me?” The question is that of a child, and Zelda can hardly deny her.

The witch obliges, stroking her Queen’s hair, tangling thick chestnut waves and grazing a thumb along the contoured edge of her cheekbone.

Melodies lull Lilith’s aches and pains for the first time since she returned to Hell, and she nuzzles the gentle swell of Zelda’s stomach, burying herself in silvery silk. Zelda smells of nightshade, cherry blossoms, and promises, a bittersweet perfume that strikes desires apart from the demoness’ heart.

Gingerly, she sits up, forget-me-not eyes intertwining with Zelda’s greenery.

“Thank you, Mother Spellman.”

Zelda blushes at the sincere clarity in her Goddess’ face, ducking her praise with practiced modesty. “Your wish is my command, my Lady. There’s no need to thank me.”

Lilith studies her bashful play of lids and lashes. She kisses Zelda, catching at her mouth with teeth as the High Priestess pulls away.

“I grant you my gratitude nonetheless. You’ve garnered my favor, dear, and it’s time you reaped some reward.” Zelda’s eyes are wide, her cheeks cupped in Lilith’s palms. Her heart beats like the stomping of hundred mortal marching bands.

Lilith watches her as her hands trickle down from their framing of her face and to the clothed button of the witch’s nightgown. Zelda lets her head fall against Lilith’s and her eyes fall closed, her breathing thick as if they’re suspended in pitch rather than air, heaving every inhale.

“Yes.” Her declaration is a wheeze, a whisper. So constricted in anticipation she nearly misses it.

The Queen of Hell sweeps auburn curls over Zelda’s shoulders and leans in, her nose grazing her Priestess’ sternum while she unfastens silk from lace, shedding decadence for another kind entirely. She hums against soft porcelain, kissing down Zelda’s neck and into her cleavage, suckling at the witch’s teat like the ravenous young of some dark and beautiful beast.

Zelda whines through the tight column of her throat, fighting it down in a vulnerable panic with her fist wrenched into Lilith’s hair, knuckles white and strained. Her head drops back, colliding with the bedside table, tassel-trimmed lamp above rattling from the impact. Lilith looks up from her work and exchanges for a pair of rolling fingers, pressing her body and lips to Zelda’s.

“Breathe,” she murmurs, sinking her nails lightly into the witch’s chin and training Zelda’s gaze to her. “What a shame to keep that lovely voice to yourself, my little blackbird.”

Lilith nips at Zelda’s ear and licks at the corner of her jaw, wet and wanton. “I want to hear you.”

Taut things snap under pressure, and the tension in Zelda’s spine is no exception. She growls aloud, low and needy, as Lilith makes her sensual descent.

Zelda’s sex is a sunflower, unfurling in the dappled, golden brilliance of her Goddess’ smile. She parts her lover’s folds like pages of the oldest unholy books with studious fingers and reads her secrets with an ancient tongue. Zelda seems to have liquified, spread-eagled on her bedroom floor, back arching into a hill more steep and glorious than that of the Tree of Knowledge.

She comes, moaning and raw, gushing like the crystal rivers of Eden, and they sleep, wrapped around one another in the canyon between twin cushioned cliffs, where they’ve captured the elusive creature, peace.


	2. uncovered, never to be erased

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back on my bullshit. :D

Hilda has half a mind to march upstairs and wake her sister. The High Priestess neglected to appear at breakfast, and there had been considerably more hubbub around the long, crowded table without her austere presence at its head.

The cuckoo clock in the front hall crows eleven times, and students separate into smaller groups for their daily lessons. Zelda’s group wanders blinking and starkly unattended into the kitchen for some direction.

Hilda huffs. Will her days of tending her sister’s business ever bloody end?

She needs to get to work, already laced into her black and white costume, to the children’s horror. That is, of course, the point, but in this context, Zelda’s voice in the back of her head stirs the urge to sink under the floorboards, and Hilda’s had it. Her sister categorically _cannot_ govern her life and emotions without so much as getting out of bed.

Greenhouse duties get some bolstering, with the addition of Zelda’s study group to their ranks, and Hilda climbs the grand staircase, picking her way over books and around young witches on her mission. Knowing Zelda, she’s probably chipping away at some task that’s vital to the coven’s survival. Hilda knows she’s likely got an excellent reason for her absence, but she’s whipped herself into cranky froth and will not be leaving until she’s sure Zelda’s roused from her damned beauty sleep.

She’s seen her sister’s weariness and shares it. No one could embark on this undertaking and still feel fresh as a daisy, but _honestly_ , they’re supposed to be in this together, and she will not tolerate Zelda’s avoidance and exploitative habits any longer. If their coven is to survive, they’ve got to be a team. A well-oiled machine, as Cee would say, and there’s very little oil to be had in the bedroom.

Rapping on the door, deafened by her rage spiral, Hilda bursts into the room.

After weeks of continuous chatter, living in a household overstuffed with whispers and rare yet precious laughter, the silence that greets her is an ice-cold shock, a shivering stillness that’s almost foreign. Zelda’s sound asleep, the creamy expanse of her back half-covered by lavender sheets and reddish gold locks, nestled in the arms of-

 _Hellhounds_ , the Queen of Hell is _naked_ in her sister’s bed.

Time speeds up again, and Hilda catches sudden alertness in eyes lit with hellfire as their Goddess wakes. She slams the door in a rush and dashes to the safety of the hearse.

There’s a cabinet at the shop stocked with stronger things than milkshakes, in case of an emergency. This isn’t the first time one of this sort has befallen her, but it certainly still qualifies.

 

 

“Zelda.” She receives a muffled groan against her breast. Lilith sighs, leaning into the headboard with the groggy witch on top of her.

Zelda’s exhaustion is no surprise. She’d stirred early, muttering responsibility onto Lilith’s lips in a parting kiss. Lilith had dragged her back down to the mattress and held her there with an orchestra of orgasms, hour after hour until the silencing charm she’d cast frayed at the edges from Zelda’s magnificent vocalizations under her hands. She is nothing if not a generous and voracious lover.

It’s selfish, but it’s been centuries since she was allowed something of her own, and she’ll be damned if she doesn’t take everything she can get. Greed is a delicious new land, ripe for the conquering, as is Zelda’s exquisite anatomy, and resisting temptation is no longer her forte. Besides, wringing out her Priestess’ worries and woes via tsunamis of pleasure will make her all the more flexible.

Not to say that Zelda’s flexibility leaves much room for improvement. Now, _that_ was a surprise.

At any rate, she’s earned more rest before facing her burdens. And her family.

Yes, that, namely Hilda, is a wrinkle. Though she’d never say so, Zelda holds her sister’s opinion close to her heart, and she can’t let the younger Spellman nip this blooming thing between them in the bud.

She could always kill her, but that would likely garner mixed results. And mixed feelings.

Lilith crushes a kiss into Zelda’s hair and slides out of bed, leaving behind a pile of pillows and witch, still warm and ever so enticing. Part of her yearns to stay, to lie in that bed and make love to that woman until the end of her days. Someday soon, she will surely succumb to the redhead’s frighteningly strong pull, and she looks forward to it.

Immensely.

But, for now, she has a bookshop to storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To **write a shovel talk** or not to write a shovel talk? That is the question. And it’s just been answered with a part two. Go check it out if you like! 
> 
> I don’t know where this went/is going, so I’m just gonna hand it over. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

**Author's Note:**

> There will be a fluffy second part soon.  
> I’m going to go wash my computer and mouth with copious amounts of soap, so while I’m doing that, let me know what you think!


End file.
